Salmagundi; or, The whim-whams and opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, esq. [pseud.] and others. By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving. Printed from the original ed., with a preface and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck.

206 SALMAGUNDI.
of the Bear Market, or the majestic steeple of St. Paul's towering to the clouds.-Perhaps, too, he may have left behind him
some gentle fair one, who, all the live-long evening, sits pensively at the window, leaning on her elbows, and counting the
lingering, lame and broken-winded moments that so tediously
lengthen the hours which separate her from the object of her
contemplations!-delightful Lethe of the soul-sunshine of
existence-wife and children poking up the cheerful evening fire
-paper windows, mud walls, love in a cottage-sweet sensibility-and all that.
Everybody has heard of the famous Bank of Pennsylvania,
which, since the destruction of the tomb of Mausolus, and the
Colossus of Rhodes, may fairly be estimated as one of the wonders of the world. My landlord thinks it unquestionably the
finest building upon earth. The honest man has never seen the
theatre in New York, or the new brick church at the head of
Rector street, which, when finished, will beyond all doubt be
infinitely superior to the Pennsylvania barns I noted before.
Philadelphia is a place of great trade and commerce-not
but that it would have been much more so, that is had it been
built on the site of New York: but as New York has engrossed
its present situation, I think Philadelphia must be content to
stand where it does at present-at any rate it is not Philadelphia's fault, nor is it any concern of mine, so I shall not make
myself uneasy about the affair. Besides, to use Trim's arguument, were that city to stand where New York does, it might
perhaps have the misfortune to be called New York and not
Philadelphia, which would be quite another matter, and this
portion of my travels had undoubtedly been smothered before it
was born-which would have been a thousand pities indeed.
Of the manufactures of Philadelphia, I can say but little,